Follow the Losers

In The Conservative Mind (1953), Russell Kirk argued that the American Revolution had mainly been “a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation...a conservative restoration of colonial prerogatives,” and held up John Adams as an exemplary conservative thinker. Ignored by Kirk were those Americans who, remaining loyal to Britain, had opposed the revolution, and who appear to have as good a claim—and perhaps a better one—to be considered “...

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